Monson: Having beaten LeBron's Cavs, the Jazz are on the brink of winning big
In a season of ascension for the Jazz, one in which they’ve edged toward believing they can climb over any challenge and any opponent, they faced a few of their steepest steps on Tuesday night at...
View ArticleMonson: George Hill's advanced degree centers on a humble kind of confidence
George Hill, the Jazz’s version of an educated big brother, was saying the other day there is a thin line for him and his teammates between self-assured and fatheaded. And for his part, he’d like to...
View ArticleMonson: Jazz's Joe Ingles has surprised everyone -- including himself
Joe Ingles played numerous sports growing up in South Australia. He was multidimensional enough to have had cracks at Australian Rules football, cricket, swimming and … yes, basketball. He had a pool...
View ArticleMonson: Jazz's aggressive body language says it all
The Jazz are improving and two things indicate it — one being about as tangible as anything can be — the numbers — and one being a bit more subtle — body language. I’m no social scientist, but I’ve...
View ArticleMonson: Thin line between locker-room secrets and open revelations
So this is deathly serious business, what goes on behind closed doors in postgame locker rooms, where and when a team’s coaches give private speeches to their players, speeches about upcoming...
View ArticleMonson: An important lesson for Kalani Sitake and Kyle Whittingham from the...
Utah and BYU can take lessons from what’s going on in the NFL playoffs — not that coaches at those schools don’t already know the drill. But it underscores the point: Get yourself an elite...
View ArticleMonson: Rudy Gobert and Gordon Hayward should both be named All-Stars
There’s an irony to the Jazz’s ascension this season and it has created an argument over who — beyond the team itself — should reap a tangible reward for it. A team that was thought to be in position...
View ArticleMonson: Utes sweat one out against Oregon, now they must sweat out the rest...
As the Utes left the floor late Thursday night, they looked as though they wanted to slip on out the back door and get away from the heartbreak of the game for a bit. Everybody — including the Utes...
View ArticleMonson: Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey fires off on Rudy Gobert All-Star snub
Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey typically is a measured interview. He dispenses good information but chooses his words carefully and understands their implications. On Friday, though, during his...
View ArticleMonson: Try to ask it with a straight face: Can BYU beat the country's top team?
The question sounds stupid. It sounds outrageous. Even worse, it sounds hilarious. Like it was written into a cartoon. Like you get the squirt of a seltzer bottle up your nose or thumped over your...
View ArticleMonson: 50 games in, the Jazz aren't far off the pace of great Jazz teams of...
The Jazz stand at 31-19 with 32 games left in their regular season. And the intriguing questions are: How many of those will they win and where will that leave them heading into the playoffs? If they...
View ArticleMonson: There are reasons to love the Patriots in Super Bowl LI
At this point, we’re all past breaking down every detail of Super Bowl LI to figure out who’s going to win the darn thing. Patriots-Falcons, Falcons-Patriots. It comes down to this: You have one of...
View ArticleMonson: Jazz sully their uniform, Utah's sports flag, not at all with this...
It was bad enough when, a number of years ago, Disney started butting in on one of the few pure things left in sports — the seconds immediately following the end of the big game, the moments when...
View ArticleMonson: It's long past time for chauvinistic and paranoid school officials to...
It was 21 years ago that I interviewed a 17-year-old athlete named Blanca, who saw herself not as any kind of revolutionary, pioneer or a force for change, but rather a competitor who wanted a chance...
View ArticleMonson: NCAA Tournament odds for BYU and Utah are a long stretch of the...
It’s not a pretty picture, the collective image of college basketball in the state this year. Not as far as prospects for the postseason go. The Marches past of multiple teams from multiple schools...
View ArticleMonson: NBA All-Stars should honor the game that makes them great
I don't dislike the NBA All-Star game. I hate it. I hate it for what it's become. I watch it because it's a part of the job, but I can't stand it. Not because it's a bad idea to honor basketball's...
View ArticleMonson: Greg Ostertag has learned from his substantial Jazz regrets
Greg Ostertag has gone and grown up. It’s a couple of decades too late to help the Jazz, but there should be some satisfaction in knowing the enigmatic man who played center for the team during its...
View ArticleMonson: Jazz make a loud statement by standing pat at the trade deadline
As the trade deadline came and went, accompanied by nothing more audible or eventful around here than the sounds of silence, the Jazz started in on their season’s stretch run with a noisy win at...
View ArticleMonson: Where have you gone, Derrick Favors? And where will you go?
Derrick Favors paused, but not for long, as he considered the answer to a question that was posed to him shortly after he arrived in Salt Lake City, as the other end of a trade that sent Deron...
View ArticleJeff Judkins grew up wearing the red of Utah. Now as BYU women's basketball...
Jeff Judkins had big plans, big hoop dreams 40 years ago. He still does, in a place, in a role, he did not imagine, a place and a role that have traversed gender and rival allegiance. The junior who...
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